**After a long hiatus to get some work things under control and have a baby, the Chasing Marketing blog is making a comeback!**

When I work with B2B Enterprise companies, I often find that they are very uncomfortable with social media as a marketing tool. Working with social media is often buried as a PR task if it is used at all. And when we start talking about using it for marketing purposes, I get a lot of push back. The reason is often that they don’t think their customers are using social media or they can’t clearly justify the spend with ROI. The underlying cause, though, is usually always a lack of understanding and therefore comfort with social media and how to use it.

I read a great article in Forbes recently that talked about how social media is becoming more mainstream for Enterprise companies.

It’s no longer about early adoption. The social enterprise is here. You’re now competing with companies that are collaborating on sales opportunities, tracking their brand on Twitter and Facebook and delighting clients through social customer service. They’re also building loyal communities of customers and empowering them as a marketing force. Mobile, social and the cloud are essential business technologies.The Social Enterprise Becomes a Reality, Forbes 4/23/2012

As your executives become more comfortable with social media, corporate resistance to social marketing tactics should become less of an issue. And B2B marketers who don’t jump on this bandwagon could miss a big bet. The window of opportunity is opening up. Marketing can become the hero for finding successful social marketing tactics that drive awareness, leads and ultimately, business. And not taking advantage of this opportunity could have some big downsides. Your competitors could easily jump ahead and make you into a social follower instead of a social leader in your industry. This can lead to losing more business to the competition which will ultimately make you look like an unsuccessful marketer.

How can you become more comfortable with social media? For starters, get out there yourself. Get to know the channels and how they are being used today. Start monitoring how and where topics related to your company’s products and services are being discussed. Once you get more comfortable, how to jump in as an active participant to drive awareness and leads for your company will quickly become clearer.